BOSTON — A COVID-19 recovery center is being stood up in Great Barrington, one of five new facilities planned in the next week across the state to address the predicted surge in patients.

 

Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday said the care centers are being developed in conjunction with disbursement of personal protective gear and ongoing testing and tracing to address the novel coronavirus pandemic. Two centers setup to care for people who are symptomatic but may not need hospitalization or who are in recovery were opened over the past week in Worcester and Boston and a third was recently completed on Cape Cod. 

 

There are three models being used to create these extra beds: converting buildings, using empty facilities or using dedicated wings within nursing facilities. 

 

"As of the end of the day Monday, there were 17,500 beds statewide in Massachusetts that were suitable for COVID-19 treatment. That includes just under 6,000 acute care beds, just over 2,500 ICU beds, and approximately another 750 that are available in the field hospitals that we put up for patients if needed," Baker said at the daily COVID-19 briefing on Wednesday.  "The last number will increase as we bring more field hospitals online. ... 

 

"The commonwealth currently has five dedicated COVID-19 facilities opening within the next seven to 10 days in Brewster, Falmouth, New Bedford, East Longmeadow and Great Barrington with a couple of others and planning stages."

 

The Department of Public Health had initially been interested in Fairview Commons as a COVID-19 facility because it had been considered "clean" in having no reported cases of the coronavirus. However, testing of residents in the Great Barrington facility uncovered five cases in which the individual was not showing any symptoms. 

 

Those residents had been all been in one area of the nursing home and have been kept in that unit since.  

 

"We have since discontinued the plan with DPH for Fairview Commons to be a COVID-19 recovery center," Rosemary McLaughlin, regional director of operations for parent company Berkshire Healthcare, posted on the nursing home's website on April 8. 

 

Another nursing home, Great Barrington Health and Rehabilitation, closed earlier this winter although its not clear when that happened. Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders had said in past briefings that the state had been considering nursing homes or similar medical facilities that had recently closed as candidates for such recovery centers. iBerkshires has made some inquiries but has not yet heard back. 

 

The governor said the number of patients at the two open sites (Cape Cod will open Monday) are "relatively low."

 

"But these sites are being built to augment existing hospital capacity, and we hope the surge in cases is not significant enough that we'll need to rely heavily on those beds," he said. "But we think it's important that they be there, and that we have them, because all along, the goal has been to plan for the worst. And that's exactly what we've been doing."

 

The state's epidemiological model is predicting a surge in cases of between 47,000 to 172,000 over the next week or so with a peak in hospitalizations around April 20. Since the estimated beginning of the surge on April 10, the state has seen 9,500 new confirmed cases and nearly 400 deaths. 

 

"We're working around the clock to attain and distribute large quantities of personal protective equipment to support frontline workers," the governor continued. "The command center, working with state and local partners, has helped distribute over 3.7 million pieces of [personal protective equipment] to hospitals, nursing homes, community health centers, public safety personnel, local boards of health and state agencies."

 

Distributed equipment includes more than 2 million gloves, more than 870,000 masks and more than 170,000 gowns. 

 

"And in addition to that, FEMA notified us this morning that we'll be given 1 million pieces of personal protective equipment including 650,000 masks and 260,000 Tyvek suits," he said. "State officials have counting all this inventory and MEMA will work quickly, the distributed these mice and needed gear to our front-line workers once the inventory count and the inspection is completed."

 

Occupied nursing homes have been highly vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19 largely because of the fragile health of their residents. A spread of the contagion at the Soldiers' Home in Holyoke has lead to the deaths of at least 36 residents; Williamstown Commons has lost 14 residents to the virus but now has 13 who are recovering.

 

There are 383 nursing homes in Massachusetts caring for some 38,000 residents, 255 assisted living residences with 16,500 residents and 93 rest homes with approximately 3,000 residents. 

 

"We're working with long-term care facilities to detect mitigate and manage the outbreak of COVID-19 throughout the state," said Sudders. "And we're intensely focused on the spread of illness and making certain that our nursing home residents are receiving the care they need during this pandemic."

 

The state has committed $130 million to stabilize and support nursing homes and increased rates across the board by 10 percent and by another 15 percent for those facilities creating COVID-19 wings or units. 

 

"Those funds support additional staffing infection control, dedicated staffing units so that the staff are now migrating from non COVID units and the additional costs of supplies throughout the emergency," said Sudders. "And we believe that these different build outs, provide the appropriate setting for seniors and for staff to get and provide the best care."

 

The secretary also reported that updates on personal protective equipment disbursement, bed capacity and COVID-19 cases by municipalities (above a certain number) will now be posted on the state's website daily or weekly.